Q&A: Is Prayer Really Supposed to Help?
Is Prayer Really Supposed to Help?
Question
If a truly just judge does not pardon a person who has been sentenced to prison or fined by law (assuming the judgment is justified), even if there are countless advocates speaking in favor of the convicted person, why do religious people apparently think (or are supposed to think) that God will change the judgment of a sick person because of a few prayers (or even many prayers)?
If we assume there is a person suffering from a serious illness, then for a believer who holds that reality is under divine providence, this illness did not come for no reason, but arrived by judgment—so why do religious people think it is reasonable that God will answer their prayer and perform a miracle so that the person recovers?
Answer
You should ask them. As is well known, the gates of excuses have not been locked. For example: that He longs for the prayers of the righteous, and therefore makes the rescue contingent on prayer. He sent the illness so that there would be prayer.
Discussion on Answer
My answer to that was given in my later change of position.
Wait—is it absurd and illogical to say that prayer can change the fate of some person or thing x?
If the Creator exercises providence and sometimes wishes, according to certain criteria, to grant something to someone despite what they owe, there is no reason He could not do so—just as in fact He sustains His entire world at every moment, even though the vast majority of it corrupts creation at its root.
What would you have answered to this 30 years ago, when you believed in the mystical effect of prayers (the absurdity that says “changing a justified judgment, by hocus-pocus”) and in providence?